Residents throughout the Eastern U.S. are feeling the scorching summer heat as nearly 160 million Americans are under heat alerts, with no relief expected until the end of the week.

Thursday will bring rain--and Friday and the weekend are looking like a deep breath of fresh air for West Virginia

For people under the sweltering influence of a heat dome, the weather pattern can be excruciatingly tedious to endure, Jackson told Scientific American. “Heat domes are generally slow to form and slow to dissipate,” he said.

Two New York City subway lines were shut down due to a power outage near the peak of the Tuesday morning rush as thousands of commuters dealt with near-triple-digit heat indices – the impact of a massive heat dome affecting millions of people across the eastern half of the U.

The National Weather Service already has issued extreme heat warnings, watches and advisories across a swath of the Midwest and South.

More than 100 million Americans are under heat alerts as the extreme temperatures that have smothered the Midwest this week arrive on the East Coast.

Public health experts advise people to drink plenty of fluids, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors who may be vulnerable to the heat. Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances.

In return, rain and spotty storms will help bring down ran cooled air and break the heat. Expect more widespread storms late in the evening and into the day on Wednesday. Heat levels will settle back down to typical summer heat in the lower 90s.

A destructive derecho snapped trees and knocked out power to tens of thousands of people as it tore across portions of the northern Plains and Upper Midwest with hurricane-force wind gusts late Monday night and into early Tuesday morning.